I don't really care for music do I?

Now that I've found Spotify and a wealth of free music I find that ubuntu (Linux) won't support it and I'm not geek enough to figure out the unix codes needed to bridge the unbridgeable gap. I say this despite spending two years as a systems guy working on a unix system in the early nineties. I did drink Coke straight from the can, read newspapers and had an actual Walkman in those un-networked and dark days. I have forgotten more than I can remember or is it the other way around or have things just changed beyond my grasp and recognition anyway.

Sometimes it's good to just see yourself sitting on this globe and allowing it to spin you around apparently slowly while you suck a nice stalk of dry grass. Meanwhile the ever present threat of a new laptop, huge unmanageable debt and a diet of Pot Noodles and Loch Fyne oysters looms large.

The dilemma of whether or not to Twitter or Facebook or ping or pong or micro-blog whilst snowboarding and drinking a latte remains also hard to resolve. At least we're back to writing songs and rediscovering a few that missed the boat and a few more that are stuck as rough but recoverable mixes.Progress.

3.14 Deja Vu

The Simple Maths of Food Porn

Life remains a bundle of confusing things fused together by words beginning with con and ending in fuse and the pies just keep rolling by. The latest count between fridge, freezer and hell itself is around seven (approximately). A perfect number, oh! and one half eaten but shown 100% uneaten in the lovely pie-tastic photo above.

Pie ceremonies come and go and our diet tends to be erratic in a famine or feast kind of way punctuated by episodes of Lost, strong drink and random Twitters from Lance Armstrong or H G Wells. The construction of the pie is a de-construction, ultimately.

Lovely fresh food prepared with only primates in mind.

Mud on the road

I can't get this lovely plate of chopped and diced fruit to the local chimpanzee colony between here and the 'Ferry due the unusually high mud levels we are experiencing at the moment. The last mud forecast I saw on the Beeb (presented by a young lady in a very low cut blouse, as is the fashion) suggested seasonally normal mud levels would abound. That is not the case, we are all in grave danger of being cut off from the outside world (as some would have it) as roads and bankings and badger burrows collapse mirroring scenes from the Dambusters.

Normal vehicles are rendered useless and all our shoes are in a right state thank you. Don't get me started on the cat's paws either. If you are thinking of coming down here then don't, head for the hills and that way you'll get here anyway by late Spring. The good news is that we should safely make it through to April on pie stocks alone but as for those wayward and pesky chimps, they'll stay hungry and cheeky. When in West Lothian it pays to look up.

Tesco Daily Photo

I was blind, but now I see things as if through the windscreen of a dirty vehcle of some sort.

Green Wall for the 'Ferry

At last the folks at Tesco South Queensferry have revealed the purpose of their random car park closure that has been bugging tourists and locals alike for a few weeks. I can exclusively report that a vital and vibrant recycling centre has now been erected in the grounds of their stately home. In one simple and swift motion you can buy a wide range of their products. consume them as you cross their tarmac shag-pile and then post the remains through some special waste stream labeled letter boxes as you stagger back to your car. Brilliant. The local community is enraptured by this advanced thinking, life for all of us is suddenly simpler and full of new meaning.

Walking on the beaches lookin' at peeled peaches.

Food Porn.

Blog snobbery dictates that it is distasteful and inappropriate to blog in detail about diet and sleeping habits. Well we're not above either here in what I hope remains an un-snobby and generally rambling and hard to categorise blog. So in a bid to define "food-porn" we have a candid shot of three young peaches, peeled and ready for the pot. The pot in this case being an apple pie, this made it a peach and apple pie, a tasty little combination of foods that qualifies due to it's sensual and exciting nature as true food-porn. I'm bored with this already (the porn not the pie).

More Food-Porn.

CS "the Architect" visited yesterday and kindly deposited with us a lovely pot of homemade (in London) Seville Marmalade. "Not quite set yet and possibly a little unsettled by the flight north, man," he warned sternly. A bloke who knows all about the mystique and breeding of the marm. Once it has set we intend to add some of the golden contents to a punnet of the finest cocktail sausages and bake them in an earthenware pot for at least forty of your European minutes. The delicious results will then be consumed slowly over time in both hot and cold settings, possibly using fingers and forks. Food-porn is perhaps less boring than I thought as these new opportunities to label and disguise emerge.

Valentine

Still quite fond of this artwork.

The Ballad of A

The sportsmen in the woods say that it's only birds they shoot

They flash to bang each weekend but you just cant bare to look

With a thousand channels popping up there's nothing on TV

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

There's a wedding in the church and so we will have to move our cars

They park the Hondas and the Rovers but can't do a clean reverse

Just a quarter mile for the bridal smile and verse of poetry

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

The west wind blew so hard that it tipped up the trampoline

The earthworks grew and flourished but the weeds still intervened

On summer nights through northern lights the stillness set you free

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

If you have a need to break up then sub-primes could leave you burned

The little cat walked down the road but then she never did return

The rain poured down on the muddy ground and you came to comfort me

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

The venues and the hotels chase all the cash they can

For good clear guides to fix your life social networks understand

Where the money goes I just don't know everybody wants their fee

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

Some fine day soon we'll wear raccoon and share a welcome meal

Family dialogue Kylie Minogue and the happy way you feel

Till then you'll work I'll wish you luck and we'll build some inventory

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

I get a little older and the plumbing goes on strike

There are cobwebs in the garage and flat tyres on your bike

At a hundred and four you'll still explore and I hope you'll think of me

You believe in breakfast but you only sip a little tea.

Ways of seeing

Great Pultney Street, a former home at No 26.

So I came back, from outer space to find you here with that puzzled look upon your face I should've developed ... a better way of seeing perhaps. I was in Bath breakfasting in a snooty hotel, eating pineapples finely sliced accompanied by a blob of yogurt. I was sitting alone and the waitress put down the coffee pot and milk, white and silver against the red tablecloth. The coffee pot, metal finished and angular sat like the Chrysler Building amongst the lowly crockery and condiments. A merry go round of jam and marmalade played at a safe distance and the round toast cracked in a shiny rack. It all looked so nice and was accidentally composed so well it was a shame to pick up or disturb anything, but I did eventually. I skipped the cooked offerings however and allowed simplicity, cold fruit and warm toast to set me up for the rest of the day.

It's about 25 years since I stayed in Bath, it was when I was at college for a short while, the Bath Stone buildings don't change but the traffic has gone from being bad to being in constant grid lock. Recycling efforts take the curious form of Waitrose bags filled with bottles and tat being hung from black iron railings like offerings to crow-gods or pirates. Eventually some truck with flashing amber eyes will pick them from their hangers like an over ripe and dirty harvest of fruit.

As I strolled around (not having been there for about five years) I became the anxious recorder and chronicler of change. What pubs had shut, or changed into bistros or cafes? No too many though they seemed quieter and more subdued, no smoke, fewer people and less laughter but a decent steak for £7.00 in the Huntsman in Orange Grove. High living indeed.

Thinking of how things are seen and recorded and catalogued, whether in the mind or physically by some system reminded me of points made in "The Delirious Museum", a book written a couple of years ago by an old friend, Calum Storrie. His dry eye for detail and the ironic juxtapositioning of world wide exhibitions and collections are well worth a scan.

Hotel with extensive gardens, ungritted roads and a strange smell of chips in the ground floor corriders or so I thought. Bath Spa by MacDonalds.

Greggs have a word for it

I'm not obsessed with sandwiches really. Just grabbing one as I rush out into the early Narnia landscape that West Lothian has now become, quite nice, quite white. The bread not the snow.

We have a new kind of coal to burn, it turns into lava like lumps, it oozes together and forms new, hot, sticky shapes as it burns. It produces a bit extra smoke (?) and it seems to burn more intensely than the other stuff, hard to poke and air but then it needs less help in the combustion process. Then it cools and sets as brittle and hard as toffee and I chuck it into potholes in the road. That's just some of things I now know about coal, oh and the coal men deliver it.

Bill Gates had a word for it

I've been heavily pregnant with a new laptop for so long now that when the birth finally comes it'll be the size of an elephant and I'll fall into a huge pit of post-natal depression and refuse to feed it (apart from odd Linux snacks). I have to go out into the jungle and sweat a bit more, mid February would maybe do, it's worse than buying a car or the right muffin from Costa. Decisions and indecision, where can I get a fuzzy laptop?

Feeling a little toxed up and needing a detox? Try blueberry juice, lemon pie, cream and a half bottle of red wine. That's all about food for today, next is laundry.

Lisa Simpson had a word for it

The disciple picks some narrow way on a broad path

Some where, possibly everywhere and probably everyday it's the Lord's day or a holy day or a festival day depending on your chosen or imposed set of beliefs. The ceremony, trappings, assumptions and duties may be bringing you down when you only want to be lifted up or at the very least listened to and understood. So even if you have no belief system you still have something because nothing is something. Your belief may be a tad indistinct, that doesn't make it irrelevant or unimportant and so in contrast to the warmth and comfort of having a Pope, a priest, a pastor, persecution or a polite politician to yourself we have the "fuzzy". No buildings, books, TV channels, platforms and sacrifices, just the rolling questions and the constant exploration. Genuine, earnest and good humoured observation welcome.


Avoid the mistake of wanting what the others think they have

Best not to get hung up about certainty. The need to pin things down and hold them in place with concrete works well in engineering but it's not so good an approach to life and the greater unknown, and that's the problem - it all is pretty much unknown. There's snake oil, smoke, mirrors and tales handed down, there's history and ruins that can be picked through. You make some conclusions, you may well hope for the best or believe the best but the edges are undeniably fuzzy. The things we don't know aren't worth strapping on a bomb bag for, going to war for or turning your back on friends for. Embrace the uncertainty and follow a fuzzy path.

Respect the shape of things

Invent.

Jeremy Clarkson had a word for it

Top Gear Chaps!

On behalf of all the one-eyed Scottish idiots I know (including myself - I'm assuming here that the one-eye is in fact the "Jap's eye" kind of one-eye) I'd like to thank JC for getting us back up into the headlines along with Carol Thatcher, Golliwogs, teddy bears and boys and Robertson's jam - the ex-jewel of Dundee. As for Father Gee Broom he's not an idiot, after all he is the PM and as such demands a little more respect, or maybe not as he's from Kirkcaldy. At least freedom of speech is being raised as an issue, the trouble being that no-one has anything remotely sensible to say about it or would know quite what to do with it if they did have it.

Divine Bigotry

Meanwhile back in Scotland, the main cause of all of England's problems for the last 1000 years (apart from the French and the Germans) bigotry and ignorance reign as we reserve the right to dislike and suspect everyone from our nearest neighbours to those out there at the ends of the colonial empire. A balanced and consistent point of view in my humble opinion and one that has led us to having one of the finest banking systems in the world, though maybe not quite a sustainable one.

Fine for me

As an example I am referring to the letter I received today from the trustees at the TSB telling me they'll charge me £15 a day as well £15.99 as a standing fine for bouncing a cheque for about the same piddling amount a few days ago. Well bugger, I thought that some one-trick idiot Fifer had bought up this bank so that the likes of me could share in it's ownership and rescue the free world from Hell's spinning pit of financial gloom and doom. Apparently not, so I must continue to embrace the uncertainty and believe in the BBC and pay up.

David Reilly had a word for it

Golden goodness pours from the heart of our farmhouse kitchen.

The entrepreneurs behind Cloudland Blue Enterprises seem to enjoy food, dietary and kitchen based blogging material which is all perfectly understandable. In order to satisfy demand I thought the above Ali + pie picture deserved a blogging outing (though it has appeared on the rival channel known as Facebook). This was taken a few weeks ago during one of our impromptu and unscheduled pie preparation evenings. Bored with no Jonathan Ross, Stramash or Stingray on the telly, Ali set about doing some apple pie creation (in fact there were two) and these magnificent fruit pies fed us and various passers-by for at least a week.

No new wild cat burglary to report last night, no strange noises or midnight disasters, just some forward planning and inward reflection, one eye on the dropping thermometer and another of the glowing coals. Quite a painful Yoga position actually, you may not wish to try it.

Schroeder had a word for it

Once we'd consumed the trout last night we resorted to couch life in order to avoid the bad weather that never came. Instead sleep came only to be dramatically ended by what seemed like a cat suspended above the bed screaming and fighting with another invisible cat, Ninja style. The stramash (as Arthur Momford would have said, also a 60s pop show fronted by Lulu as I recall) lasted no time at all but left Ali and I wide awake and shocked and Clint hiding under the bed.

Forensic investigation revealed that a cat of unknown origin had entered the house via the conveniently open cat flap, scooped up the remaining cat food and explored upstairs until he she or it encountered Clint, the stalwart and brave ginger cat. I believe that in true cartoon apple pie fashion this wild cat sniffed the trout on the frosty night breeze and decided to call in for a possible feast. At 2.30 in the morning this isn't a good test of quantum physics, nerves or levels of consciousness. No trout for a while I think.

Patsy Kensit had a word for it

Have you ever come home at night and decided you'd like to listen to a little Trout Mask Replica and then discovered that you can't find your copy? Then to make matters worse you become unsure as to whether or not you actually have a copy. Such is my dilemma tonight. I'm sure it's some where or am I sure I ever had it or is it perhaps in the car? Too cold to venture out to check, I'll settle for Planet Rock and leave CDs well alone. You never had this problem with vinyl and Mp3s are silly abstract things at best.

This a common enough problem for me, confusing reality, daydreams and memory and therefore not being quite sure what objects are where at times or actually owned by me. It also happens with onions, you think they are there in the vegetable basket, a handy supply, ready to peel and fry or whatever and then you discover there are none. Recipes at this point have to be abandoned (most likely in favour of toasted cheese) or altered in some radical and not always pleasing or satisfying way.

Carrying on with the fish theme I purchased two fish (trout in fact but nothing to do with Captain Beefheart) for 35p each in a rare and strangely successful piece of guerrilla food shopping. FD would be proud. My real mission was to get suitable biscuits inboard for an important visitor about whom no more can be said. Said fish will now be grilled with various added extras, fresh veg and frozen chips. Shame about the onions.

Jamie Oliver had a word for it

There is no pasta recipe that isn't improved by adding in hot dogs - we've all heard that one before.

Back to back episodes of Lost. Things on that island just aren't right, where will the time bandits crash next and how come the physics displayed are counter to Dr Emmet's Back to the Future basics? Talk about being lost.

Dangerous cup cakes.

Spiders in the shower that cannot be dislodged.

A road gritting spree that proves futile as floods return.

Snippets of weather, news and Iggy Pop selling car insurance.

A cat that refuses to move despite veiled threats, pressure and some gentle heaving. Then it snores loudly.

I'd have an early night if I could accurately ascertain the actual time but then I'm lost as is, some may say, my mortal soul. Not sure about my immortal soul but I think the ability to express emotion is the indication of the presence of a soul of whatever type.

Pavement cracks that threaten to talk back.

Shackleton had a word for it

Snow brings hysteria and peace in equal measure, a bit like alcohol or being in love. Once steady and reliable shoes are suddenly slippy and hated, ears fail to listen as they glow red, fingers fail to grip bags and phones and dropping cold spirals of frozen water crystals are allegedly all unique but you can never see them properly without your specs.

The news bulletins cover snow as if it came in a bomb from Russia, out to destroy capitalism, public transport and the British way of life and everybody must not travel unless essential. What the hell does that mean? What's optional travel anyway?

They could put Lord Peter Mandelson in charge of giving snow clearance advice, give him a brush and shovel and send him mincing down to some oil refinery to tell the protesters that they shouldn't have traveled out in such awful weather because it's much more reasonable to let those foreign chaps do the travelling.

Driving in snow is the worst, for one thing you always get stuck behind some joker who wants to drive exactly five miles an hour slower than your car can manage in a decent gear. You don't want to run into him but you're fed up changing gear and if he drops his speed you might start to stick. Worst of all if you try to overtake (and that involves heading out into the less clear and well gritted lane and getting splattered) you look like a complete maniac. Possible duvet day alert coming up.

Want a laugh? Click here. Thanks to P. It's not a link to the £50million appeal for funds for the forgettable but "lovable" Titian, why don't they do BOGOF at art gallery sales? Just what the Scottish economy needs right now.

Chuck Berry had a word for it

The truth is we can never quite get enough of anything, good or bad; as one Mighty Bush checks out, up springs another that sets itself alight and starts talking to you about the "Promised Land".

Nice to hear Gordon Brown admit that the current worldwide financial crisis is beyond the understanding and experience of any of the key players. That might well mean we get a little less "wisdom" imparted on us from 25 year old economics graduates and fast stream bond brokers who think that they shouldn't stir from bed for less than £100k a month. Perhaps Robert Peston will also shut his trap and curtail his published works of doom laden rambles and allow the big boys to fix things (by experimental means of course)out of sight of the hysterical mass media glare.

While the world passes by I will continue to build better bowls of spicy mince dishes, fight against the cold with coal fired heating systems, plunge into pools of icy cold lyrics and sparse punctuation, tell lies on Twitter, Facebook, Bookface, Arseface, Mr Big Blog and Tweety Pie, detune untuned guitars, iron my socks, consume copious amounts of yogurt, quaff spicy vitamins and minerals, marvel at each lost episode of Lost, explore the bigger plan and curl up in a snug duvet whilst keeping an eye on the treeline.


UFO over Burntisland Shock:

It was a bloody shock, the blood almost ran back into my frozen feet. Picture if you will a Baltic football pitch in the heights of Kelty, snell (?) winds frae the east freezing oor lugs and nethers, very unforgiving on a Sunday morning. I look over to the misty green glow that is the distant, ancient conurbation of Burntisland. High above in cloud and cold hovers an eerie amber light, twirling with queer white flashes like a drunken majorette in a Fife gala parade. I watch, my jaw dropping and my blood almost curdling (too cold to change in reality). The flying beast hovers over the ex-home of aluminium looking for some innocent to abduct and study, possibly on their way back from the Coop armed only with a Sunday Mail, a pint of milk and 16 paracetamol. It dipped, it dived and it was gone in an instant. Time stood still and somewhere in Burntisland milk spills white chill into the gutter and Glaswegian newsprint twaddle flaps alone down an alley, unread. Oh yeah.

Hard to read as presented but a good example of early Broon type lateral thinking. Good man Gordy!

A little bread with that sir?

"I can assure you that no animals at all were harmed in the planning of this wedding officer."

Things are moving in the way they are bound to, in all directions in a fairly uncoordinated way. As a part of that I spent a very pleasant rock n' roll Friday night in the company of Teddy Thompson, Tift Merritt, Miss Fi and Ali, mostly talking about mint based drinks, the music of the spheres, the magic building site that is Edinburgh and Teddy T's chat up routines.

The quest for a visually stunning drink continues. Is mint tea acceptable? I think it is. Could you add whisky or gin to it to perk it up? Probably. Does it go with cake? Not quite sure. We'll have to carry out a series of controlled experiments under test conditions once a cake base has been identified.

The spectre and horror that is Marryoke has raised it's head and it won't go away. I am veering towards some kind of adoption of this practice, indeed forming plans (and then discarding them), then forming them again. I may have to apply for some kind of meaty grant from either a public body or a drinks manufacturer or a family member. The cinematography gene in me is itchy and the artistic muse calls aloud and demands an answer (of sorts), You-Tube and the Oscars beckon and the loss of reputation and personal credibility are a small price to pay.

Teddy T in action, great band and lots of charisma, songs may need a little work. No sure about the shoe statement but that's show biz.

Sympathy for Glenrothes

Some guy who writes a newsletter dislikes Glenrothes because like many other places it's out of time and suffering from the (economic) structural decay that will become common place as the banker's revenge continues to run it's course. Bah Humbug! Art, imagination and architecture are great things when at their peak, when a major decline sets in, the temples, markets, theatres and circus tents collapse and the wild beasts and feral children run free. You could say we get what we deserve.

So what about the wider issues in Scotland? I have to admire the Greens trying to screw 100 million a year for ten years out of Wee "pointy finger" Eck. Based on my primary 7 maths that's £20k a head (maybe £60k an average household) for insulation, wind turbines and solar panels. Just imagine going down to B&Q with 60 grand to spend on your house's green credentials every year, might need a roof rack. My course of action, should I be given the opportunity would be to spend the princely sum on a nice villa in southern Spain so reducing Scotland's pollution, insulation and energy consumption problems rapidly and in my case permanently.

Survey results just in:

What is Scotland to you?

The best small minded small country in the world.

The best nationalistic dictatorship in the world - looking for the right dictator.

Where a good quality diet doesn't matter.

Never best, not even second best.

Where potholes find homes.

Where recycling means confusion.

Where mountains are small and the welcome smaller.

Where industry used to be.

Where football shirts are fashion statements.

Where culture remains primitive but engaging.

Where modern media has yet to develop.

Where there are plans but no cash.

Where we have ambition but no vision.

Where we have social services but no social life.

Where pub culture has been outlawed by pricing strategy.

Where currency is worth less than a Euro.

Where music and poetry means a series of Burns tribute acts and sod all else.

Where equality is a possibility.

Where refugees are welcomed for the recipes they bring.

Where religion is misunderstood by each generation.

Where the national sport is scratch card scratching.

Where you'll have had your tea.

A place where schools don't consider national history worth teaching.

Where mediocrity is celebrated.

Where division is by common language.

Where wild things (occasionally) run free.


Thanks to the good folks of Glenrothes.

Coming around

It's a healthy and good thing to change your mind about something, particularly if it's in the positive axis. Before I'd ever been in it I disliked the local Datoka hotel because it was new, big, brash, next to Tesco and the A90 and it just seemed out of place. Now I've been in and around it a couple of times my position has changed, for one thing it's very stylish, for another it really does work well as building. The space is sensibly and usefully divided, the decor is veering towards tacky but fits in well, the materials are rough but the effect is warmth and economy. Black is in there big time and it's serving the environment well.

The actual bedrooms are thoughtfully put together and when compared to hotels in the same price bracket actually quite nice. So I feel a little smug having moved seemlessly from one position to another, proof that my inherant stubborness has a healthy limit and than nothing is beyond redemption. Nothing that is apart from Carry On films, the excessive wearing of sports clothes, monkeys, 1970's town centres, the Lords and those with deep pink to redder necks.

Those goons in the House of Lords have set up yet another cringe worthy performance with the cash for law bending and manipulating revelations. It is scary to catch a glimpse of how arrogant and out of touch a group of people can become when they have spent years in a cosseted talking shop badly running great swathes of this country and lining their pockets in the process. In the other House of course they bellow and argue like buffoons over their black and white views on who is right and who is wrong. Strange how it never occurs to them that finding some common ground, sharing a little clear thinking and the pooling of resources in positive strategies might just help the old country along a bit more than their childish bickering. Two tribes.

The frog and toad totem pole photo collection goes from strength to strength, how's your's doing?

New dawn of some golden day

It can get noisy around these parts but we mostly respect the environment.

More than ever we're now using some obtuse and oblique strategies to describe, understand and justify our lives and I suppose to re-connect with people who orbit the same sun but not the same spot of land. A constant balancing act of blogging, micro-blogging, texting, blue toothing photos and music and the odd 150 or so emails that wraps the process in fun and clever mechanics. Sometimes watching TV is almost relaxing, the friendly ping of Twitters in the background, newspapers littering the floor as Jonathan Ross returns to the screen to grin at Tom Cruise, already busy out grinning him. Which one would the average straight guy go gay for? Is it a contest at all?

The morning frost was scraped from the car and a light January sun rose over the hedges as we headed away into Edinburgh to collect the little box that contained the remains of Smudge our cat. The usual mess of roadworks and debris greeted us into and waved us out of the city, Smudge's carton sat on the back seat, like a gift from Amazon or Play.com. At least she's back home now and we'll scatter her ashes somewhere, sometime. It seemed a good idea to buy a selection of chocolate, pizza and finger food to munch through for the remains of the day.

Before that is started on it was the heavy but healthy brunch with smoothies, sausages (must be beef), eggs, hash browns, beans, toast, bacon and a pot of tea for Ali. It set us up for a hoovering and dusting marathon, experiments with light bulbs and starters and a stream of weekend laundry. Saturday is the day for utilities, kids wrestling with PC applications, Sky Soccer Saturday, dreams of the great Scottish novel, waste bins, exploring the depth of the freezer, glossing across the mail and papers and a single candle burning on the table to remind us of a little cat.

Tomorrow is Burns 250th birthday, the media and the tourist board are excited, it's their big time and they milk like it really meant something. Haggis will be stabbed and eaten and Burn's rather inaccessible works skimmed over as cliches and warm but now exhausted phrases are repeated with an acquired profundity by people trying to connect with something already dead and disconnected from most of our daily lives. The books are dry and open, the pages are staring at the ceiling but the words fail to to lift off and fly, mainly because no one really wants them to or needs them. They are like Bible passages or Dickens prose, best summed up in a few short songs, skimmed phrases or strap-lines and then put back on the shelf for the next festival of the glorious past or redundant holiday ceremony. On Monday Tesco and M&S will discount the neeps and mash and then lay out the aisle ends with Easter eggs, yellow chickens and daffodils. You know it makes no sense but you'll put your PIN number in anyway, these are your sins and you carry them with you, no matter where.

Mr Shed 2009 & America under new management

The shed fever continues, the pressure and the sweet pain of competition grow and become as addictive as some sweet drug - like a Muller strawberry fruit corner yogurt. Now, today almost nothing else matters as much. As things hot up I've taken the radical step of adding photographs taken in the searing light of a typical West Lothian January day. This natural approach will I believe reveal the best aspects and the true nature of our wonderful shed. Click on the title link or here to see the latest suite of pictures, read and enjoy the blurb or if you are brave enough post some clean and creative shed related comment.

Meanwhile the question of the day is (and isn't likely to be answered), what is the best meal for a healthy but middle aged chap like me? Diet and lifestyle choices these days provide so many quandaries and moral dilemmas.

a) A Big Mac and a medium latte (no fries, no ketchup).

b) Poor Man's noodles with a curry twist and mackerel sauteed in olive oil.

c) A banana, a pack of 50p carrot batons and a slice of birthday cake.

d) Instant coffee, a cereal bar and a chunky Kit-Kat.

e) £25.01 worth of BP unleaded at 85.9p a litre.

f) Listening quietly to the Tom Morton show, eating nothing but possibly swallowing some saliva.

e) A plastic cup filled with fizzy vitamins and chilled water from the "Middle-aged man" Tesco range of healthy stuff.

Answers on a postcard please...

America is under new management says America, fine by me. When do we get to have a go at this over here?

Shed of the year

As it's been a hectic day at work I naturally came home eager to relax and as means of reaching new competitive highs and creative peaks and calming myself down I decided to enter our shed in the "shed of the year "contest. We are up against stiff competition from a number of international shed specialists but what the hell. My entry is simply called "Small shed ensemble with barbie and barrow accessories, at night".

The unique features of our shed are a)that you can't actually get into it, b) that it once contained a wasps nest, and c) it stands on four unique house bricks. I fully expect the judges to swoon with delight and award us some handsome prize, hopefully a new shed that the average person can get into.

Projects and the rest

For some reason I didn't want to post anything over the previous Smudge post. Some kind of respectful distance needs to be placed between the memory of the wee cat and my ramblings and occasional rants. Somethings don't easily coexist in certain kinds of space but under pressure they have to, in other words life goes on and on.

Today the Obama show has taken over everything in the media and imagination and I suppose quite rightly so. Today I have parked my cynicism, my distrust and my unbelief and decided to be moved (a bit) by his address to the nation and be impressed by the crowds and their hope and (likely) baseless optimism. Hope is the greatest thing, even if unreasonable or unrealistic it forms us up and allows a forward motion and an energy release that can change worlds. Hope is also hungry and needs the fuel of recognition and tangible success in goals realised, er..Go Obama Go...

Meanwhile looking around the room and into the PC files, unfinished projects pile up like debris on the beach, ship wrecked ideas and bits of other things that I can't quite put a value on or somehow develop from some base position. I compile lists of their names, peer into them like avatars on Facebook and stepping back see only bits of a jigsaw but without the box lid. Striking a better a better note than my twisted black guitar currently can I found a short story I'd written hidden away on the (newly re-jigged) OOTB site, how on earth did that get there? The Great Gondolli or something like that...

Smudge

Our beautiful little cat Smudge died this weekend. She'd been missing since Friday and we were fearing the worst. After searching in the woods, roadways and gardens Ali found her this morning, she'd been hit by a car a few hundred yards from home. She was a smashing, cuddly wee thing, full of fun, mischief and a great mouser and we're now missing her badly, as is her big ginger brother Clint. There are somethings you just don't want to ever have to write about.

Ah! Sweet mystery of Fife

Fife is blockaded this weekend, held hostage by FETA terrorists bent on preventing the escape of millions of doe-eyed, straw sucking Fifers hoping to stretch out their credit card advances on the streets of Edinburgh, but FETA says "thou shalt not pass". The reverse is also true with central Scotland now sealed of from the bonnie southern banks of the Firth of Froth to the bonnie ex-banks of the credit crunch. I may sneak over into Fife tomorrow, early in the morning when no one is about and the border guards are occupied with the Sunday Mail crossword or queuing for a sausage and egg McMuffin breakfast at the golden arches drive-thru.

In the mean time my supposed creative weekend has hit a dip thanks to an unexpected and so far fruitless pussy cat search. Recording and mixing plans have been dropped in favour of head scratching, looking out of the window and wandering around the hedgerows. Bugger, things are looking bleak.

Toys out of the cupboard (funk 4)

A pile of equipment litters the dining room, almost joined up by imperfect leads and devices looking a bit like the inside of Neil Young's barn after it's been robbed. Pedals and power supplies are lying across the floor in tribute to the failure of the music industry to standardise connections. A guitar waits patiently in the distance eager to rush up to Gm7, D and then back to Amaj for a last hurrah.

As it's January the salmon and home recording seasons are once again open and nothing in the vicinity is safe. The drum loop known as Funk 4 has been edited, reverbed, muted and then topped and tailed, it now lasts a mere 1 minute 30 seconds but in that time it buries the wah guitar with the slight delay and the FX effect that struggles to find four notes. Well done funk 4, we salute you.

Lost in a car park

The trouble with silver cars is that a) they are common as muck and b) muck is very common, so returning to a large open car park after dark and trying to locate your ride home can be tricky. Usually at Edinburgh airport I park in the multi and manage to just about remember the level, the rest is easy. On Wednesday I chose the open air long stay in a burst of economic anguish and thanks to a quick bus pick up and little thought on my part, on my return I could not find my car.

Panic however didn't set in, I just walked around for a while, at angles, across bays, from sign to sign, from pay point to bus stop. Many cars were found, none were mine. I thought about asking for help at the office but the potential humiliation was too much so the random walking continued until after about twenty minutes we were reunited and I sped of as if nothing had happened. The last time this happened was in Disneyland when I couldn't remember the colour of the hire car only that it was in the Dopey area with a cuddly toy on the back window shelf.

Favourite old tunes of the day:

The King will come - Wishbone Ash.
White room - Cream.
Folsom Prison blues - Johnny Cash.

Soup of the (yester)day: mature vegetable.

Amplifier of the day: TEC6200 Stereo Power 100w.

Sweet of the day: Chunky Kit-Kat.

Pie of the day: Mince round.

Effect of the day: Phaser.

Gavin and Stacy chic

Sometimes it's good to get into things later than everyone else. This series is honestly funny, well acted and there still are a load of unseen (for me) episodes to come. Some little touches are perfect, the blue Saxo is great, the fat friend and the surreal Nessa, Wales and the extended family. The house in Essex is a study in contemporary life style that David Hockney would love, thank you BBC channel whatever your number is.

Art is everywhere

Art is everywhere, art is out there to be enjoyed, disliked or tolerated - in unexpected places. Art has little to do with galleries, £20 million price tags, diplomas and cocktail parties. Art doesn't need more funding or prizes, receptions or patronage by corporations. It just needs to be conceived, carried out, looked at and appreciated.

High Hopes

Why will the USA and the UK continue to support the state of Israel despite their violent and heavy handed conduct towards Gaza?

The answer is almost simple: The USA and all the other western powers that have grown into Christian based democracies cannot, for a series theological, historical, moral and philosophical reasons bring themselves to condemn Israel. In the minds of all the modern Hebrew based religions and the government systems that they co-support the position of Israel regards the “rest of the world” remains as it was first described in the Five Books of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament). The Jewish nation remains the “apple of God’s eye”. Put simply they are God’s chosen people and their struggle to maintain Israel is fully justified by the earliest of Bible teachings and is therefore not a principal to be trifled or disagreed with.

Many contemporary church sermons, methods of teaching and pillars of thinking remain based on these early writings, available to all as the books Genesis to Deuteronomy, translated and incorporated into the Holy Bible. To unpick one part undermines all the other passages, so if Israel’s status is threatened then so is the creation story, the doctrine of original sin and the fall, the Ten Commandments, the moral absolute that is the Hebrew Jehovah and the need for a messiah to arrive to redeem fallen mankind. The rest of the Old Testament and the significance and relevance of the New would also fall apart as a piece of joined up literature and template for life. It’s a bummer of a theological trap that the USA’s political system and its church based followers cannot allow themselves to fall into, otherwise we’re (as stupid white people) all completely guilty of all the (western) colonisation and evangelical crimes of the last 2009 years and we’ve no mandate to move forward.

The violent and intolerant situation we’re now seeing is worsened by harkening back to the latitude God apparently gave to early Jewish heroes like Joshua and Caleb to go out and ethnically cleanse the tribes that were occupying the promised land of Israel when the Jews returned from captivity in Egypt. That thinking still lives on and in various forms, both practically and metaphorically and influences a great deal of modern political thinking and Christian teaching. There are Jews, there are Christians and there are the rest of us, so sending air strikes into schools and hospitals in Gaza when you view the victims as being outside of the love and care of your God is easy. The Christian religion is very good at the convenient use of exclusion, separatism and the drawing of hard, judgemental lines, often despite what the very core values of the religion may profess to be about.

As a further complication the numerous Biblical prophecies about the progress of the Jewish people, their dispersion, persecution (no joke) and their return to Palestine in 1948 all add weight and depth to their beliefs. A further problem is that the other “yet to be” stories at the far end of the Bible work backwards towards the present day. They contain a huge amount of prophetic writing that shows the end of the world, Armageddon, occurring above or around Jerusalem following a long series of violent wars and conflicts all fought out in the Middle East. What good upstanding, church going Christian or God fearing Jew can afford to deny the significance of these current events when seen in the context of a Biblical wipe-out? The whole of the Middle East has now become a huge self fulfilling prophecy that cannot be overturned because so much is a stake for the credibility of our (sic) cherished beliefs, rich, fat and obstinate churches and wayward parliaments. Never mind the oil either.

Everybody wants a little certainty and justification in their lives and that’s what the Bible, when interpreted in this fundamental way gives. Good guys, bad guys, slanted eyed Arabs or dark skinned godless tribes from the edge of the world, they are sheep or they are goats. Sadly the people of Gaza are all in the wrong place at the wrong time and because Hamas is bad (which it is) and the vengeful God has said so, we need to fix it with our tanks and aircraft regardless of where that leads (and in the minds of many because it leads to certain Armageddon).

It helps to look for constructive humour from time to time but where can you find it these days?

Untitled 574th post

This is soothing and almost fun, click here.

A busy and entertaining weekend is coming to an end, lots of food and drink, family and friends around and surviving some dodgy weather and eccentric cat behaviour.

The placebo is working

Shopping for Placebos in the sticks.

The mind is greater than the body and it is possible to live for a thousand years and overcome sickness, old age and the vapours. My daily course of tablets will see me through, each one transformed in an effervescent sparkle into a healthy gulp of water and chemicals, thereafter the darkness will fall but a bright light will surely shine and you get in Tesco for £2.99.

Tonight it was a large Rogan Josh with heavy portions for one and all while listening to the Cult, Wishbone Ash and Ted Nugent. I may watch Grey's Anatomy at some point once the cats are fed, the sun goes down and the dishwasher cleans all the bright little pieces of cutlery. It is Friday after all.

Shopping in Aldi seems like a good idea until you pack your bags and realise you have all the right things with the wrongs labels and they may turn out to be the wrong things after all and you've missed bits from the yellow sticky list. Damn.

Secret CDs and UFOs in January

My favourite news story of the day has to be that of a UFO colliding with a wind turbine, I'm more inclined to think that a big boy did it, hit it with a stone and then ran away - but then aliens will be aliens.
Edinburgh's Secret CDs night isn't as you might think a pub night out for Midlothian cross dressers but is the recurrent showcase night for local original music run by Jim Igoe. Jim tries hard to put together a varied combination of acts and in the process allows them to hawk their CDs (on the night and via the web link in the blog title) and hopefully gain a wider audience.

We attended the first session of the year last night and enjoyed the easy going efforts of William Douglas, possibly the best undiscovered talent in the city. William pushes light humour with strong observation and getting the maximum melody from the minimum chords. He also has the look and charisma of a young Neil Young, hungry and edgy. His songs and the use of 7ths and repetitive sequences ending up in unexpected places are polished, the lyrics are childlike, fresh and just a bit dark and unsettling. I've watched him now for about five years and always expected a breakthrough to occur, maybe this year, maybe these songs.

Ali enjoyed a quartet known as "Lipsync for a Lullaby", a strange mix of cello, guitar, drum, bass and a loop pedal. I'd need to hear a bit more of them to form a final opinion as their live performance was a little disjointed and the high and floating vocals were lost in the lipsync and cacophony.

At home retro cooking returns with Poor Man's Noodles back on the menu.

Wild eyed cats strike curious etc.

Our cats either leaping in a peculiar way or stuck to the wall thanks to the special Velcro suits Ali knitted for their Christmas or possibly just doing something else.

I refuse to believe that January is the most depressing month of the year, how can it be when you can get such a buzz from tearing down decorations and hurling dead trees to the foot of your garden? It should be an Olympic sport really and we'd be damn good at it.

Actually the most depressing month of the year is September when your holiday credit card bill mugs you with a mixture of cash transactions, stupid impulse buys and currency conversions. Then again that happens most months. The biting January cold is quite hard to take mind you, we're on two scuttles a night for coal and a brace of the finest sticks plus a can of de-icer every three days and that's without roasting any chestnuts or making a bed properly. Thankfully going back to work has been a joy and the roads on which I travel shine like new pennies thanks to the black ice, Mr Cougars dim lights and the mysterious West Lothian pot holes.

P.S. Instant coffee is a strange substance, ever noticed how you start to dislike it's suddenly bitter taste once you get three quarters of the way down any jar regardless of the brand or type or the size of the jar. Hmmm.

Dinosaur eh?

The people who write or broadcast about history make it their own and interpret it on their terms, often very narrowly and with only very shallow insight. Apart from my general dissatisfaction with Scottish history not being taught properly in Scottish schools I can now add to that my annoyance at Prog Rock continually being rehashed via the Beeb and summed up as "truly" represented by the efforts of Yes, ELP and bloody Genesis. It's as if ten years of music and loads of bands have to be succinctly summed up in 40 minutes - so we'll use stock film and interviews to "capture" our version on the cheap. Punk and Glam rock hardly fare better with the same old protagonists getting credit for inventing whole genres of music that in fact evolved over time in a thousand different ways. The real life development of rock music isn't lived in sound bites and vox pops nor was it exclusively summed up by the Old Grey Whistle Test, the disastrous Isle of White Festival or any Reading Festival. I was there or there abouts as I recall.

Worse than the Katzenjammer Kids

Eyeless in Gaza

The (outside) world events as portrayed in the news often leave me puzzled and ultimately cynical and pessimistic. The repeated conflict in Gaza, the aggression and ludicrous self belief of the Israelis, the belligerent Hammas forces, the impotence of the Western powers and the intransigence and posturing of the Soviet Bloc (or whatever it calls itself). Meanwhile the Arabs and sunglass wearing followers of Islam bay like tethered hounds or fiddle for quick solutions as if they were looking for the keys to their Lexus and Cadillac SUVs. It seems like every man-jack is determined to fulfil all the garish Biblical prophecies in the book of Revelation or the Qur’an and then some. Lions, beasts, whores, harlots, lakes of fire, tattooed numbers, rockets and AK47s all line up to confuse and pick out an eternal story than runs and runs and doesn’t get better. Meanwhile innocent people suffer and the arms brokers make a few million more. Where’s the bit in the Bible about wiping the planet clean and starting again?

Having said that who wants a clean planet? If we got the chance to start again we’ve all be in fig leaves and fighting over the last banana before burning down the forest to create a chill-out zone and a clearing to plant out our carrots. Then we’d snare the last of the rabbits before turning them into warm slippers and furry hats then feeding the remains to the feral cats we were trying to domesticate. That is of course unless we change track, mind sets and beliefs and adopt the “Celebration” model for community life. Celebration in Florida is a (more than most) manufactured town and a master-planned community in Osceola County near Disney World. It was developed over time by The Walt Disney Company albeit their influence has decreased over the years. Perhaps the answer is out there, not in focused religions, acute political stances or blind tribalism but in manufactured, sanitized small communities that manage themselves and build big fences and feed the residents a nice big dose of Soma on a regular basis – in the water mains, drinks machines and chip shop vinegar. The application of this may just make the likes of Cumbernauld, Glenrothes or the Middle East acceptable places to stay and would ease the practical problems of government a thousand fold. Strange that the Israelis haven’t as yet demonstrably tapped into the Gazza water supplies.

Power is fine but useless without control. Benign control only comes via healthy fear or slavish love but fear is the most effective. Love can be too strong and is prone to turning, love also spawns idealism – itself a threat and possible destabilizing agent. So whoever controls the water controls the population – you don’t need their hearts and minds when you have a grip on their plumbing systems. Barack Obama and the Presbyterian Church know this very well and this will be one of their key subliminally managed strategies in the thousand year plan.

I probably won’t watch much of Celebrity Big Brother, firstly there are no celebrities in it that I admire, many of them I don’t even know and secondly like most reality shows the banality and repetition is now becoming tedious – the format is dead. A third reason to avoid it is the hooting Davina pulling faces and shoving her hair out of her eyes. January should find me staring into the screen savoring old Coen Bros. films or hijacking Ali’s discovery of Grey’s Anatomy or her boxed set of Bones – that seems better although Ulrika Jonsson and Tommy Sheridan are a possible nightmare love match from either Heaven or Valhalla. Still thinking of films what is the cultural importance and legacy of the movie Garden State?

I picked up a random radio question, “what makes you/me proud to be British (or Scottish)?” For once I can be positive about something and can readily summon up a list of answers in a rough top 10:

Kilts, tartans, whisky and clans (but not Robbie Burns).
Hills, lochs and the Forth Bridges.
Getting to the top of the M6, seeing the gloom ahead and knowing I’m nearly home.
The selective use of bagpipes but not as WMDs.
Fife, Edinburgh Castle, the Clyde Submarine Base, Leuchars and Lossiemouth.
Boiled eggs and soldiers, beef sausage, Irn Bru, pies and bridies.
The East Neuk and the rise and decline of herring fishing.
Pubs, chip shops and Oor Wullie as they used to be.
Scottish weddings and (in a dour and respectful way) funerals.
Chick Murray and the eclectic and shambolic world of Scottish comedy.

God again

Thanks to Paul for this test of belief, logic and the amplified mechanics of the wheels and cogs all spinning in the heavenly spheres that circle our pretty little empty heads: Battleground God.

MMIX

The lucky cats at Ocean Terminal welcome MMIX

2009 started frosty, clean and sharp but has now turned back to the customary wet, dripping and muddy mud-fest that we struggle through daily. I found this out whilst transporting the Christmas tree from it's triumphant stance in the lounge to a less than triumphant and much more undignified slow death on the bonfire site. Stripped naked and neglected and due to be burned during some future drunken barbecue it would make a fine central character in some poignant allegorical tale of spiritual decline. Today and in the coming days many such trees will find themselves on death-row, behind a hedge or wall or compressed into the brown wheelie bin you can never fill in winter. I also hoovered without breaking anything and celebrated with coffee and twenty minutes of Planet Rock's heaviest heavy metal muck from the past reminding me of the brief time I spent on duty as a youth. A state of mind and dishevelled dress that was not encouraged, recognised or understood by the authorities in Central Scotland in 1969.They did play "Little Wing" by JH which sounded fab, hard to believe it's over forty years old and still fresh as an Afghan Black five skinner rolled out on a gate fold sleeve.

So all the decorations are down and organised in boxes and colours and so on but they will still manage to be in a complete mess when we next unpack them, the 2008 Christmas Gremlins will be to blame.

Determined to beat the gloom I drove into the 'Ferry to see what was on, as expected shops were shut and barricaded, people walked dogs aimlessly and a heavy dull set of clouds were set up in the sky. To cheer myself up I browsed around the M&S shop in the petrol station checking the grim newspaper headlines, the ready meals and having a useful conversation with a cash machine. Home again for ironing, fish pie and farewell to Paul who was heading back to the great industrial wasteland and Irish refugee camp that is Scallie country.

Yesterday - Science Fiction, Ghostly Tales and Fairy Stories: Well that would be Ali's journey through the mind of Arthur C Clarke via his writings, Jonathan Creek's strange and badly scripted and plotted murderous bathroom and the Brothers Grimm with Heath Ledger and Matt Damon. I watched the first half hour of this thinking "what a complete mess" then my agile mind twigged that it must be the work of Terry Gilliam otherwise how could it so creative, chaotic and unfunny. In the end it's relentless stupidity won me over and as the story ended almost happily I was hungry for cheese, wine, home made bread and cough mixture. I slept like the Sleeping Beauty albeit with a molten throat.

She walks, talks and roller skates.